


Never Shaken

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Even to the edge of doom [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:57:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3965242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At opposite ends of the realm, Sansa and Willas face very different challenges - but they are both fighting the same war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let me not to the marriage of true minds  
> Admit impediments. Love is not love  
> Which alters when it alteration finds,  
> Or bends with the remover to remove:  
> O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,   
> That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;  
> It is the star to every wandering bark,  
> Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.  
> Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks   
> Within his bending sickle's compass come;   
> Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,   
> But bears it out even to the edge of doom.  
>  If this be error and upon me proved,  
>  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
> 
> \- Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

They crossed the Red Fork near two weeks past, at a ford three leagues from the Twins, and had been making slower and slower progress with every mile further north they travelled.

Sansa wished she could be back in Highgarden, or at least that she might have Willas’ company, but she knew that this was the best way. This was the only chance she and Arya might have to see one of their brother’s again, and Willas could not possibly leave Highgarden, not with Lord Mace and Garlan going to war, not with his injuries, not…

Winterfell was not his place. The North was not his place. Willas would be as out of place in the North as Arya had been in the Reach, and that sense of wrongness would only make him self-conscious and grumpy, and then he would feel guilty for his ill-temper, and she did not want that.

He had smiled so beautifully while they were saying goodbye, even though he had had tears in his eyes, even though he had been exhausted from so much sitting up, so much talking, since Humfrey’s arrival in Highgarden. He had smiled to give her a good memory of him, she knew, to reassure her that he would survive her departure and be there for her when she returned. She never wanted to see him frown ever again.

“Lady Sansa,” one of her retainers called - sturdy, curly-haired men from the Reach, wrapped up in layers of wool so thick it made Arya laugh every time they emerged from their tents at sunrise. “It’s time to bed down for the night - the scouts say there is a copse of trees just ahead where we might find some shelter.”

The trees were all bare here, in the snow, but they grew so tangled together that they kept the worst of the wind and snow out so that they might get some sleep during the long, dark nights. Sansa had found it hard to settle the first long weeks on the road, missing the softness of a bed under her, the warmth of her and Willas’ blankets, the warmth of Willas’ _skin_ against her own. She had felt so weak and useless, especially when she saw how easily Arya and Lady Brienne slept, how readily Humfrey slipped into slumber when he came off his shift of watch at night. He usually took first watch, she thought so he could sleep enough to ride with her and guard her through the whole day.

He took his promise to Willas very seriously, she’d noticed. So seriously that he and Lady Brienne often clashed - Lady Brienne insisted that her vow to their mother was more important than Humfrey’s vow to Willas, but Sansa could not believe that, not now.

Not after seeing that _thing_ that had corrupted her mother’s soul and was inhabiting her skin. Arya had somehow made sense of the creature, had managed to reconcile _that_ with the gentle hands and soft smiles that had warmed Winterfell even on the coldest days, and Sansa would never understand how she had done it.

They had a team of retainers from the creature, too, from Stoneheart. The big one in the yellow cloak, Lem, was too familiar with Arya and Lady Brienne for Sansa’s tastes, but stayed well enough away from her - Humfrey made sure they all stayed away from her, Humfrey and Marian together were better than the fiercest guard dogs, but she had one of those, too. Blossom seemed to love the snow, contrary to all expectations, but loathed just about everyone save Sansa herself, Arya, Marian, and Humfrey.

“She only likes me because I smell like Willas,” Humfrey grumbled, appearing in that sudden way of his at Sansa’s side. Whisper was less easy in the snow than Blossom, her delicate legs thickening with muscle, her sweet nature sometimes turning sour after a long day. Humfrey had a way with her, though, murmuring to her as he helped Sansa dismount, always taking care of her tack himself - he did the same for his own horse, Sansa had noticed, babying Sparrow almost as badly as Willas did Gardener. It was unnerving, sometimes how alike to her husband Lord Hightower’s youngest son was, but mostly it was a comfort, a piece of him to travel with her even when she was most afraid.

“I think she likes you because you sneak her more meat than is rationed for her,” Sansa accused him, grinning under the scarf over her mouth. His eyes wrinkled in response, just as Lady Alerie’s so often did when she smiled, and he waved Sansa on, passing her Blossom’s lead and pointing towards the shelter that was being set up - Arya was already there, helping pitch some of the tents, while Lady Brienne was helping one of the men who had come from Oldtown with Humfrey build a fire. Sansa was pleased by how respectful the men had been of Lady Brienne, especially as compared with how Lord Mace had treated her.

Garlan’s assurance that she was innocent of Lord Renly’s murder seemed to have carried considerable weight among the men from the Reach. The creature’s hoarse order to follow Lady Brienne’s direction had done much the same for the brigands who were just now foraging for food and firewood.

“Come, shelter,” Sansa said to Arya, guiding her into the tent nearest the fire, in the centre of the camp. “Rest a while before we eat.”

Arya had always been half a horse, but even she was weary after the long, difficult days in the saddle, peering through snow and sleet with scarves wrapped around their faces and what furs they had wrapped around their shoulders. When she pulled back her hood and unwound her scarves, Sansa could see the deep shadows under her sister’s eyes, see how prominent Arya’s cheekbones had become in the near to two moons since they had left Highgarden, and she worried. They had plenty of food - while their table was not as abundant as those in Highgarden, it was filling, and supplemented with whatever they foraged or bought along the way - but the sheer effort of remaining on horseback against the biting winds blowing down from the North was exhausting.

“You ought to rest as well,” Arya said, frowning when Sansa took a candle and flint from the saddlebag she always kept beside her, and, once the candle was light, the sheaf of parchment and the pen and ink. The ink she had to hold over the candle to thaw the ice, but once that was done, she made note of anything exciting that they had done, of anything interesting she had seen, and planned on sending it all to Willas as soon as they were somewhere safe. “You look like shit, you know - you should try sleeping more.”

As they’d travelled further north, and the nights had gotten colder, Arya had insisted on their sharing the furs - it did help them stay warmer, but it made it more obvious just how restless a sleeper Sansa had become. Arya worried for Sansa near as much as Sansa worried for her, enough that they had managed to avoid fighting for the most part. They bickered still, of course, but no more than Willas and Garlan did, not as far as Sansa could judge.

“I’m well enough,” was all she said, dipping her quill into the inkpot and scribbling down a few notes for Willas - she knew how he’d fret, and hoped that receiving this might comfort him a little. “I wonder where we are, though,” she added, biting her lip. “There can’t be much more between the- the river and the Neck, not even with how slowly we’ve been going.”

“As perceptive as you are beautiful,” Humfrey said, unwinding his scarf as he crawled into the tent. “We are indeed more or less to the Neck, niece - my scouts have reported back that the ground gives way to marshland not ten miles ahead, my lady. We are sending someone on ahead with a request for aid in the morning - gods willing we might find this Lord Reed you tell me was great friends with your lord father.”

* * *

 

“Tell me, Lannister,” Willas said, refusing to look up from the maps spread out on the table before him even when the Imp began to whistle. “What purpose do you serve?”

“Here at Highgarden, or in a more general sense? With regards the latter, I feel that I add a certain effervescence to the lives-”

“In Highgarden,” Willas grit out. “In the service of the Dragon Queen. In _Westeros_ , you fool! Your mad sister wants your head, and she’ll take the head of any dwarf she lays eyes on in the meantime!”

“I am here as a political advisor to the Queen - or rather, to Ser Barristan, since he is here and she is not. You have been told this repeatedly, my lord.”

True enough, Ser Barristan had assured Willas and Father both that Lannister was truly there on their Queen’s orders, but Willas still mistrusted the annoying bastard.

He tried, though, for Sansa’s sake. She had told him how Tyrion Lannister had tried to protect her while they were both in King’s Landing, and any man who did good by Sansa was deserving of his respect and thanks.

If only Lannister weren’t so damned _irritating!_

And if only they weren’t trapped together in Highgarden, the last two men left in the castle, more or less - Father and Garlan were gone north-east and south-west, one to shore up the defences nearest King’s Landing and the other to aid against the Greyjoys at Oldtown however he could. Garlan was the one likely to be in the most danger, but Willas knew that Father was far from safe, especially now that Ser Barristan was with him, as ambassador for Prince Aegon’s most dangerous rival.

“Has your queen a temperament that might lead her to making peace with the Prince?” he asked, if only to keep himself from making some acerbic comment that would earn him a reprimand from Mother. “Is she likely to avoid war on that front, at least?”

“Well,” Lannister said, pulling himself up sit opposite Willas. “She’s done away with her second husband, both of them dark-skinned foreigners, so the third being a Targaryen seems appropriate. Finally with her rightful husband, as some would see it, I suppose.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Well, I am not Daenerys Targaryen,” Lannister pointed out. “Could you predict what your wife’s sister might do if presented with a husband who would help her regain their home and titles?”

Absolutely he could - Arya Stark would press Sansa to annul their marriage so that _she_ could wed whoever this marvellous prospect was, particularly if he was a Northman.

“Likely I could,” he said. “But again, that is not an answer.”

Lannister was smiling, a terrible thing that twisted his scars - just seeing that made Willas’ own scars feel tight and itchy, especially the bulk of the scarring on his back.

“I will tell you this, Tyrell,” Lannister said. “Daenerys Targaryen wed a Meereenese slaver prince to protect the people she gathered on her travels. She would go to great lengths to protect innocents, I think - so, if your Prince offers her fair terms, and guarantees safety for her people, I cannot see why she would refuse him. Which,” he added, holding up one short finger with a vicious sort of half-grin, “is not to say that she will not. She can be capricious, the Mother of Dragons.”

Willas sighed and sat back, tipping his head back so he wouldn’t curse at the little bastard. Getting answers out of him was like pulling hen’s teeth, as infuriating as it was impossible.

“I will say this, though,” Lannister cut in. “Your abandoning my sister and nephew and acting against them will play in your favour with the Queen. She hates whoever holds the Iron Throne more than she hates near anything else, and your breaking from my family will look well in her eyes.”

Well, that was something, at least - it made it less likely that they’d all die in a hail of dragonfire, he supposed, and that was a fate he wished to spare them all, especially given how Loras had- how Loras had been-

He swallowed past the lump that had gathered in his throat, swore that he would go to Loras’ grave in the morning with Margaery, and sighed.

“How far behind you do you suppose your queen is?” he asked, rubbing his eyes - it had been a moon’s turn since Lannister and Ser Barristan had arrived, two moons since Sansa had left, and Willas was already sick and tired of everything. He missed his wife, he missed his father and his brothers, and he missed having any semblance of normality in his life.

But they were at war, were they not? Normality was a distant dream.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shows up a year late with Starbucks

Sansa was nearly sick with jealousy every time she looked to Lord and Lady Reed.

Not only because seeing them together, able to talk and touch and smile together, made the ache of Willas' absence all the more pronounced, but because here was Father's greatest friend, alive and well, with his lady wife at his side, she just as alive and twice as hale, when Sansa's father had been robbed of his head and her mother had been robbed of her heart. It wasn't  _fair._

It hurt more than seeing Lord Mace and Lady Alerie together had, during Sansa's early days at Highgarden - it had been next to impossible to look at them or at Garlan and Leonette or at any of the married cousins, because she had looked at them all and seen everything her mother had lost, everything she was sure was out of her reach, because surely a man of Willas' years and learning and experience would never look at her the way his father looked at his mother. She had overcome that, though, because Willas had so quickly given his heart into her keeping, and because she had been  _part_ of Highgarden, right from the moment Willas wrapped her in green and cloth-of-gold. 

Here, in stilted, stifling Greywater Watch, she was an outsider, and there was no comfort to be had in Lady Jyana's presence. Lady Alerie was ever a balm, no matter what hurts Sansa took, but Lady Jyana offered nothing but a cool practicality and a polite welcome, and saved all her warmth for her husband.

It was too much like the way Father saved the best of himself for Mother for Sansa to ever like the woman, living the sort of life denied her parents, and so she held herself back, allowed Arya to lead here, where she seemed so very at home, and from which Sansa wished to be gone as quickly as she could.

"You are not our first guests who owe their visit to this war," Lord Reed said, tugging on his short, thick beard, watching them with sharply green eyes. "There are some who hide here for fear of what might be done to obtain that which was entrusted to them. Do you wish to meet them?"

 

* * *

 

 

"You knew this," Willas said, feeling as if he might lose his mind, "and said  _nothing?!"_

"What good would it have done for you to know," Lannister said evenly, "when your brother was already halfway to Oldtown by the time of our arrival?"

"You knew that a madman has control of a fucking  _dragon_!" Willas shouted, giving up on maintaining any semblance of control because Garlan was in the worst danger imaginable, and he was powerless to help. "A dragon that he is going to use  _on Oldtown!"_

"I understand that your brother is a sensible man, my lord," Lannister said coolly, painfully unmoved by Willas' terror. "Surely he will not put himself in the dragon's path?"

"I am sure that no man on the Field of Fire thought to put himself in a dragon's path, and thousands still burned, you insufferable  _shit!"_

Lannister leaned back in his chair, looking almost... Surprised.

"If you'll calm yourself a little, my lord," he said, "I can explain why we did not think to tell you."

Willas' hands were still shaking, but he lowered himself into his chair and cast aside his crutches in pure temper, waiting for Lannister to begin.

"There is no way to combat a dragon," Lannister said, "but there are  _many_ ways of countering Ironborn reavers. Had your brother been informed of the incoming dragon, he might have been distracted from the task at hand, and there would have been no one to defend from the raiders attacking the coast and the villages outside the city. Am I wrong, my lord?"

Willas could not find so much as a single word to explain just how disgusted he was by Lannister's actions. Garlan was marching to almost certain doom, Grandfather and Baelor and Malora and all the rest would surely die as well, if a dragon was set on razing Oldtown, and Lannister  _knew_.

"You have killed my brother," Willas said. "As surely as if you had wielded the sword yourself."

"Well," Lannister said easily, "brothers always prove themselves less worthy of your love than you initially believe, so what of it? He would only have disappointed you."

 

* * *

 

 

"You must understand, Lady Sansa," Lady Mormont said, looking more annoyed than anything else, "that so far as your brother and his advisors - myself among them - knew, you were wed into a House which stood staunch behind the Lannister bastard."

"My husband's family murdered the Lannister bastard," Sansa said, "and while my goodsister did wed the kitten, that was as much about removing Cersei and Tywin Lannister from influence as anything else."

"And installing your goodbrother on the Kingsguard?" Lady Mormont challenged, jaw set in a way that made Sansa think of Arya. "That was surely just to influence the boy king, and had nothing to do with gaining prestige for the roses of Highgarden."

"My goodbrother is dead," Sansa said sharply. "Installing him on the Kingsguard was the best chance my goodfather saw of protecting my goodsister from harm while they worked their schemes, which of course were about gaining prestige for House Tyrell. Not all lords have motives so pure as my father or brother, Lady Mormont. Perhaps that is why they survive where we Starks seem to die so much more readily."

"You have survived as well, Lady Sansa," Lady Mormont said, cool and drawn back. "You have  _grown strong_ under the protection of your husband's family. A pity their protection did not extend to your brother or mother, or to my daughter, or-"

"A pity you are so eager to blame someone for treason that you will turn your anger on a girl who was powerless to help, my lady," Lord Reed said quietly. "You know well there was naught Lady Sansa or her husband's family could have done to stay the hands of the Freys and Boltons - those wheels were long in motion by the time she was made a Tyrell."

"I was in the High Tower of Oldtown when I was told what had happened," Sansa said, queasy at the memories. "The Queen had ordered us to King's Landing, but my husband wished to spare me that, and so he took me to meet his mother's family. I had no idea of any of it, not even of Robb wedding the Westerling girl, not until it was done. All I could do was pray for their souls, that they would find their rest. I was... I have been powerless for a very long time, Lady Mormont. My House has been powerless to stop our fates for a long time."

Lady Mormont had taken to Arya immediately, congratulating her on having survived so much, for so long - but she had no such warmth for Sansa. Master Glover had at least hidden his disdain a little better, but Lady Mormont was not a woman for false courtesies, and had made it clear that she had little sympathy for what Sansa may have suffered, in the face of what comfort she had had since marrying Willas. Not so long ago, Sansa might have quailed before her, cowed by the old woman's righteous anger, but she knew that Lady Mormont's anger was not meant for her so much as for all that has been lost, and Sansa's own removal from it.

"I did not ask if you cried for your mother or not, my lady," Lady Mormont said. "I mean only that it is not for you to say what good any choices have made - this war has barely happened for you. Safe as a hostage at court, and then an illustrious marriage? Hardly a difficult few years."

Arya moved to defend Sansa, which surprised her, but she held up a hand to forestall Arya's words.

Her cloak whispered to the floor, and Lady Mormont looked confused when Sansa's hands went to the fastenings of her gown. 

"I was not safe as a hostage at court," she said. "From the moment Joffrey Baratheon made me watch Ilyn Payne take my father's head, I was not  _safe._ "

Arya helped her pull her arms from her sleeves, helped her arrange her shift and stays to show off the worst of her scarring.

"From the moment Robb went to war," Sansa said, "I was his whipping girl at court. Every time Joffrey Baratheon was displeased by something, whether done by my brother or by Balon Greyjoy or by Stannis Baratheon, the Kingsguard were set to beating me."

She turned, and Lady Mormont and Master Glover and Lord Reed all stayed silent.

"I spent half my time out of my mind on poppy's milk," Sansa said, "because I had to heal well enough for the King to have me beaten again when next his temper snapped."

Arya gave her a grim little smile as she helped tug Sansa's clothes back into place, and Sansa was grateful for it. It was hard to even think about all that Joffrey had done and threatened to do, but if it made Lady Mormont take her at all seriously, Sansa would do it. 

"Do not tell me that the war barely happened for me," Sansa said, fastening the silver roses to hold her cloak in place when Humfrey settled it around her shoulders. "I carry my brother's victories on my skin every day, Lady Mormont."

Lady Mormont looked her in the eye properly for the first time since they had been introduced then, and had the nerve to  _smile_.

"There is more of your mother in you than I believed," she said. "Good. We will need her strength of will if we are to sort the mess the Boltons have made of the North."

"Let's begin with Robb's will," Arya said, sounding grateful. "I think we can all agree that it is null, given that Rickon is alive?"


End file.
